


Juliette

by mldrgrl



Series: Adventures of The Lady Detective and The Writer [45]
Category: Californication (TV), The Fall (TV 2013)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Cutting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 05:41:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14325828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mldrgrl/pseuds/mldrgrl
Summary: The Hanella honeymoon continues.  This installment comes after many, many requests from Anons for a story that deals with Stella’s cutting.  If that upsets you, you don’t need to read it.  I also realize there are many, many personal stories that people may have.  This is Stella’s story and not anyone else’s, nor is it meant to be.





	Juliette

Stella would not consider herself a natural caretaker.  She would say she is good in times of crisis and calming those in crisis, but as far as long term care goes, it isn’t exactly her forte.  However, there is something inherently different about seeing someone you love in pain and it certainly brought out a desire to nurture. Not that much though.  She was no Florence Nightingale and Hank could try the patience of a saint, but her sympathetic strings were tugged by his plight. And on their honeymoon, no less.

 

There was something about being able to give him relief though.  It was strange, but the simple act of giving him a massage, of feeling his muscles melt under her hands and to watch him slip into a relaxed stupor under her hands made her essential to his recovery.  And there was something about just touching someone without an end game. It felt indulgent and she liked it.

 

They were where they had been for most of the last three days.  In bed, Hank in his underwear, Stella in one of his t-shirts. He was face down, arms angled up so that his elbows were bent up by his head.  She was sitting on the back of his thighs, her knees gripping his hips as her palms slid up the smooth plane of his back. She gripped his shoulders and squeezed until he grunted slightly and then she eased up on the pressure and brought her hands back down to the small of his back.

 

“I swear, Sherlock,” Hank mumbled.  “As soon as I’m back to normal, you’re receiving payment in kind.”

 

“Perhaps I’ll hold you to it one day.”

 

“Oh God, right at the side there...whatever you were just doing with your thumb.”

 

“Here?”

 

“Yeah, fuck.  Keep doing that.”

 

Stella circled her thumb just above and to the right of Hank’s tailbone with moderate pressure.  He moaned appreciatively. She worked the spot for a little longer and then gradually worked her way up again.

 

“How are you feeling tonight?” Stella asked.

 

“Better,” he answered.  “Still sore, but those ice packs have helped.  And this, obviously.”

 

“Good.”

 

A sudden thought crossed her mind and gave her pause.  She stilled her hands for a few moments and then took up the massage again, albeit a little slower.

 

“Something wrong?” Hank asked.

 

“No.”  She shook her head a little and pressed her thumbs a little deeper into the base of his neck.  “Just thinking about something we haven’t done in awhile.”

 

“Does it involve fucking?  Cuz that would sure be a swift kick in the testicles right now.”

 

“I promise it had nothing to do with the question of your virility.  Or lack thereof, presently.”

 

“Oh trust me, I’m not lacking in that department.  I’ve got virility for days on end.”

 

“I’ve no doubt.”

 

“Are we at least naked in whatever scenario you were cooking up?”

 

“It wasn’t a scenario and as stunning as this may sound, not all roads lead to sex.”

 

“Sounds fake, as the kids say, but okay.”

 

Stella smiled a little and focused her attentions on the Hank’s shoulders again.

 

“I give up,” Hank said, lifting his head just slightly so he could look back at Stella.  “What haven’t we done in awhile.”

 

“Stories,” she said, touching the back of his head with one hand to encourage him to lay back down.

 

It was something they used to do years ago, when there was an ocean between them and nights were long.  It started as mostly Hank talking, filling the void of when neither of them could admit yet that they missed each other.  She had been slower to share things that weren’t of a more superficial nature, but the more they saw each other, the more she shared.  It felt like a lifetime ago.

 

“Oh,” Hank mumbled.  “Yeah, I guess it’s been awhile.  Gimmie a minute or twenty and I’ll try to think of a good one.”

 

Stella smiled slightly and leaned into the pressure she was exerting on Hank’s back a little harder.  He took a deep breath and sighed. She wondered what he might tell her, but he was also so relaxed at the moment that she didn’t want him to think too hard.  She could try to come up with something, though. Something he didn’t know.

 

It was oddly difficult, when she really pondered on it, trying to think of something she could tell him.  Certainly everyone must have thousands of stories to tell, but she wasn’t as gifted as Hank was in that department, to be able to think of something on the spot.  When it came to work, her mind was quick and she could respond to any given situation the spanse of a heartbeat. Ask her to share something personal and it had to be processed and turned over in her mind for quite some time before she could say a word.

 

Stella halted the massage rather abruptly again, this time pulling her hands back from Hank’s shoulders.  It came over her and caught her off guard. There was a story he didn’t truly know. Well, he knew aspects of it, but not the whole truth of it.  It wasn’t something she kept from him purposefully, but it wasn’t she spoke about in any depth, except maybe with her therapist, many years ago.

 

“I have a story for you,” she said.

 

“Really?”

 

“Yes.”

 

She put her hands back on Hank’s shoulders, but merely rested them there.  He lifted his head ever so slightly and looked back at her again, this time raising his brows.

 

“You okay, Sherlock?” he asked.

 

“I was thinking of where to start.”

 

“Usually the beginning is appropriate.”

 

“Well, that’s hard to say.  It started when I was 12, but I think it began much earlier.”

 

“What did?”

 

Stella didn’t answer.  She started back up with Hank’s massage again, taking her time to put her thoughts in order before she began.  “I bumped into the corner of a table at school and it left a significant bruise just below my hip,” she finally said.  “Red, at first, and then later a whole variety of colors. Purple, blue, green, yellow. I remember staring at it in the mirror in my bathroom, pressing into it and watching it bloom into deeper shades when I would take my thumb away.  It hurt terribly, but the pain also made my heart race.”

 

“Is that...the scars on your thighs, is that…?”

 

“Not yet.”  

 

Stella moved her fingertips lightly over Hank’s back and traced the outline of the tattoo on his shoulder.  She was always envious of anyone that had the strength to stop at one piece of body art. It was why she never got one herself.  She didn’t think she’d be able to stop.

 

“Go on,” Hank said.

 

“I liked it,” she answered.  “Even though it hurt, I liked it.  Not the pain itself, I simply liked being in control of it.  I could make it hurt when I wanted and I could also make it stop whenever I wanted.  Unlike other things.”

 

“What couldn’t you stop?”

 

“Oh.  Everything.”

 

“Anything specific?”

 

“Everything specifically.”

 

Hank snorted softly and she smiled.  Very cautiously, she shifted her weight and eased down until she was lying on his back with her cheek resting on his shoulder.

 

“Does this hurt?” she asked.

 

“Feels good, actually.”

 

Stella regulated her breathing to be in time with Hank’s.  Rising with their inhales, sinking with their exhales. She closed her eyes and let the hypnotic rhythm of it lull her.

 

“It wasn’t one thing,” she continued.  “It was both nothing and everything. It was a general feeling that life was intolerable, but not wanting to die.  On the contrary, it was a deep yearning to appreciate being alive while finding living unbearable. And then you find this thing you can control, and it seems like it brings you moments of relief, but the reality is that it is not.”

 

Hank shifted his arm just enough to displace Stella’s hand from his wrist and then he laced their fingers together.  Their thumbs met and flirted with each other for dominance with easy caresses. 

 

“I had other methods as well,” she said.  “Discovered by accident most of the time. Once a month, I was subjected to tea with my mother and she forbid me to wear my hair up, which is how I liked to wear it at the time.  I would keep the elastic on my wrist and when she inevitably began with the not-so-subtle reminders that I was a blight on her marriage to my father, I would snap it as hard as I could so I could focus on that physical pain and not her words.

 

“I would repeatedly wear a pair of shoes that gave me blisters at the backs of my ankles, though I had to stop that behavior when one of the blisters became infected and needed medical attention.  At the time, I also had visible welts on my wrists from the snapping and I was afraid suspicions would be aroused.

 

“I took extra care to make sure the welts were well-hidden with a bracelet.  When questioned about the blisters, about how I could let it get to such a dangerous stage, I merely said I thought I could tolerate the pain because they were my favorite shoes.  The doctor told me he hoped I’d learned my lesson about putting fashion over comfort. My nanny called me a silly girl. My father said I was just like my mother.”

 

“No one suspected anything?”

 

“Why would they?”

 

Stella felt Hank sigh beneath her, the kind of sigh that told her he felt helpless and frustrated.  She turned her head a little to kiss his shoulder and let her lips linger for a few moments before resting her cheek against him again.

 

“Bear in mind,” she said.  “Self-harm has only been recognized as a disorder very recently.  No one spoke of it. I didn’t have a name for what I was doing to myself, I only knew how I felt and that it probably wasn’t normal, per se.  Pain and shame are just naturally things that you keep hidden.”

 

“Is that why you turned to cutting?  It was easier to hide?”

 

“Perhaps it was.  I don’t know. It didn’t escalate into that until after my father died though.  I simply found myself with an x-acto knife in my hand one day whilst in the midst of an art project for school, and I wondered what it would be like to drag it across my skin.  And, so I did. The result was a kind of euphoria. It was like when I was much younger, four or five, and my mother would deliver a quick, unexpected slap across the face. A momentary sting, heat, throbbing, and then the adrenaline kicks in and you’re floating outside of yourself for just the briefest of moments.  I’d hated it then, but I liked it when I was in control of it.

 

“The problem is, you can never recapture that first time.  You just keep chasing that initial, exhilarating feeling, but it never comes.  It just hurts. But, it’s better than thinking about the father who left you and the mother who turned you away.  Or friends you can’t make or keep because you have too many secrets.”

 

“How did you stop yourself?”

 

“I got careless and I got caught by a roommate at boarding school.”

 

“And she told on you?”

 

“The opposite.  She was quite compassionate, actually.  She told me whenever I felt like hurting myself, to find her instead and she would talk to me.  And that is what I did.”

 

“What was her name?”

 

“Juliette.  She was...my first.”

 

“First what?”

 

“Everything.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“It was over before the end of the term though.  She was a year older than me and preparing for her A-levels.  We just sort of let each other go and I never saw her again. She deserves the credit, however, because it was her care that stopped that particular habit of mine.”

 

“What did she look like?”

 

“Dark blonde hair, always perfectly feathered.  She had amber-colored eyes. I’ve never met anyone else with eyes quite like hers.  She was neither thin nor voluptuous. Everything about her just seemed to be perfectly proportionate.  The angles of her face were just as they should be, not sharp or soft. Her brows were arched just enough not to look surprised or wicked.  I suppose she would be considered average by any standard, but to me she was effortlessly beautiful. And a good person.”

 

“You don’t know what happened to her?”

 

“I do not.  As much as her influence helped to close certain doors, it also opened others.  I found other methods of distraction that felt less destructive, but it was all the same.  Alcohol. Casual sex.”

 

“Throw in some recreational drug use and next you’d be telling my story,” Hank interrupted.

 

“Drugs didn’t do much for me.  I didn’t like the loss of control.”

 

“I guess opposites really do attract.”

 

Stella shrugged and made a soft humming noise in response.  Hank twisted his thumb around hers and gave it a squeeze.

 

“I need to stretch,” he said.

 

Stella eased her weight off of Hank and knelt beside him as he pushed himself up and turned over.  There was still a grimace on his face from the exertion, but not as pronounced as it was a few days ago.  She adjusted the pillows for him and he slid back so he was sitting against the headboard and rolled his shoulders a few times.  He stretched his neck back and then smiled and reached for her. She straddled his lap and rested her hands on his chest.

 

“If you ever feel like that again,” he said.  “Come find me. I’ll be your Juliette.”

 

She smiled slightly.  “It’s been a long time.”

 

“What made you tell me?”

 

“Perhaps it’s that you’re here.  Still.”

 

“Wish you’d gotten rid of me when you had the chance?”

 

“There are days when you are more trouble than you’re worth.  I suppose I’m stuck with you now, though.”

 

“Like superglue, Sherlock.”

 

Stella bent her neck and tipped her head to the side to kiss him.  She put a hand to his neck to keep his head still as she parted his lips with her own to slide her tongue across his the way he liked it.  He groaned and reached for her hips to pull her closer, but she pulled away.

 

“This is torture,” Hank said.

 

“We shouldn’t,” Stella answered, even as she pulled his shirt off over her head.  “You haven’t healed properly.”

 

Like a moth to a flame, his hands went immediately to her breasts.  She leaned into it and sighed. Sometimes the perfect way they fit together made her think she was formed from the mold of his hands. 

 

“I’ve heard sex has some pretty fantastic healing powers,” he said.

 

She couldn’t keep her hands out of his underwear.  His back might be sore, but his cock was certainly functional.  She was already wet with anticipation.

 

“Can you be still?” she asked.  “Let me do all the work?”

 

“Fuck yeah.”

 

“If you’re quite sure,” she answered, stroking him harder than she should to see if he’d keep his word.

 

“Fuck,” he groaned, tipping his head back and biting his lip in an effort not to move his hips.  “Stella.”

 

She rose up on her knees, pulled her panties aside and sank down onto him until she was back in his lap.  He was already breathing hard and pulling at her hips. She petted his head and shushed him, moving at a pace that was even agonizingly slow for her.  His eyes had rolled shut, but then they rolled back open and locked his gaze with hers.

 

To take her weight from him, Stella gripped the headboard on either side of Hank’s head and changed the angle of her hips, making the upward lift of her hips more short and shallow while still taking him deeper.  They moaned simultaneously and the sound of his pleasure was enough to make the small muscles along her interior walls ripple and clench. Hank groaned again and she could feel him nearing the end of his tether. She reached down to help herself along.

 

Hank muttered a variety of expletives up at the ceiling as he came and Stella moved up just enough to eat his words.  Their teeth clashed and he accidentally bit her lip, the shock of which tipped her over the edge as well. She licked the stinging taste of copper from her mouth, breathing hot and heavy through her nose against his cheek.  She wondered for the millionth time in her life why pain and pleasure felt so similar and why they were both so fleeting.

 

Beneath her, Hank chuckled and squeezed her ass.  “Well,” he said. “Happy honeymoon, Sherlock.”

 

“Happy honeymoon, Watson.”

 

The End

  
  



End file.
